Crash and burn
by HRL
Summary: After being sent on the premises of a fire, House and Cuddy realize that happiness can be fleeting. / Huddy, season 7. [Translation]
1. Prologue

**Hi guys !**

Since the end of the show, I have been having a hard time finding inspiration to write new stories so here I am again, translating my own stories from French to English. My french readers particularly liked this one so I hope you will too !

Anyway, here is the prologue. You will probably notice a few mistakes, sorry about that. Feel free to correct me ! And as my english is far from being perfect, it would be **awesome** if someone could beta-read the next chapters (don't worry, there are only 3 of them). Please, pretty please ? :)

It's short, but as soon as someone is ready to correct my next chapters, I will post them ASAP ^^

_Enjoy ! =)_

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She hadn't seen it coming.

She had been so taken by her race that she had forgotten to look around her, and see what was happening. So she had felt the heat, thickening, weighing down the atmosphere before seeing its actual cause. She had felt her legs give way beneath her and her head had hit the ground before she could realize something was preventing her from keeping running. She had seen the blood shedding all around her, before an intense pain made her realize the blood was hers.

She had let go before having time to say and hear everything she needed.

She hadn't seen it coming.

And suddenly, everything went black.

* * *

_So, wanna know what happens next ? :)_


	2. Heat

**Hi there!**

So this took longer than I expected but here's the first real chap! I hope you'll like it!

A huge thanks to **LEfan77** who corrected it so quickly ! :)

_Enjoy ! =)_

* * *

**Chapter 1: Heat**

-"So?" House asked impatiently as the commercials appeared.

-"These are just women fighting and yelling at each other." Shrugged Cuddy.

-"Maybe, but it turns me on. Not as much as you do, but still!" He said in a satisfied tone, brushing his girlfriend's cheek with his lips.

Cuddy smiled, snuggled up to her favorite diagnostician.

She had caved and agreed to watch television with him. While she was more of a films and documentaries watcher, he liked TV shows and reality TV. Which was surprising, considering the fact that he hated clinic duty because he thought people were idiots and liars. And then he was watching a show where people seemed to have been selected according to their stupidity and their ability to lie. In the end she cheered up, realising it was the exact kind of program to watch after a hard day of work in order to clear your head.

But she would never admit it to him.

Instead, she pulled away from House's embrace and said:

-"I'm gonna make myself some tea. You want a whiskey?"

He didn't answer but his smile spoke for him. She could not help but smile back at him before disappearing into the kitchen.

-"Hurry up, it's starting again!" House screamed from the couch two minutes later.

Cuddy smiled and quickened but more because she was eager to snap back into her boyfriend's arms than because she wanted to see more of the show.  
While she was preparing to return to the living room, her phone rang. The hospital.  
She hesitated a moment. They only called in the evening when they _really_ needed her. But at the same time, she just wanted to spend a quiet evening with House. But what if something really important happened? Her responsible side took over and she picked up the phone.

-"Lisa Cuddy speaking."

A few minutes later, she slowly walked towards the living room. She knew that House wasn't going to like what she was going to tell him.

-"What took you so long? You missed the fight of the century!" asked House when he saw her coming back.

He patted the available space next to him but she didn't sit down, merely handing him his glass of scotch before saying:

-"The hospital just called. They need me."

-"And you obviously told them that I needed you more", replied the diagnostician, unhappy.

-"A fire broke out during the charity gala which was held at Princeton General tonight. Fortunately, it only affected the north wing of the hospital and patients are being transferred to several hospitals, but there are many injured among those who were at the party. It's just a big mess over there and they are desperately short of doctors. I have to go. I'm so sorry."

House nodded, disappointed and turned off the television before getting up.

-"What are you doing?" Cuddy asked, surprised.

-"I'm coming with you." House stated as if it were obvious.

-"No, no, no. You stay here!" Cuddy said.

-"You just said that they needed doctors. I am one." House retorted.

-"I need someone to take care of Rachel. Please…" Cuddy begged.

-"So call a baby-sitter." House replied.

-"Marina has already been here all day; I'm not going to harass her at night! And seriously, would it be too difficult for you to help me with Rachel sometimes?" Cuddy got angry.

House lowered his head sheepishly. Had he been anyone else, he could have told her that he didn't want her to go there on her own because it was dangerous and he would worry about her. But it wasn't the kind of thing that he could confess to and Cuddy hated to be smothered anyway. So he went back to the couch while Cuddy went to her bedroom to get dressed. Barely ten minutes later she was ready and left the house, without another word. He could have sworn that if Rachel wasn't sleeping, she would have slammed the door.

He sighed. He knew that Rachel was a sensitive topic. He did like the little girl and started to feel at ease with her, but he wasn't treating her as his own daughter. Yet. He knew he would, eventually, considering how fast she had tamed him with her big innocent eyes, her small piping voice and her horrible habit of swallowing objects. However, he knew Cuddy dreamed of a real family. And even if she would never admit it, House not being very expansive with her daughter sometimes hurt her. Therefore he understood her anger but realised that he couldn't do anything about it at the moment since the kid was sleeping. He knew Rachel wouldn't care who was watching her while she was asleep. And he also knew he wanted to be with Cuddy and make sure she was okay.

He made a quick call before leaving.

_One hour later._

House had arrived on the premises of the fire twenty minutes earlier. He had to take care of a few patients while keeping an eye Cuddy, always making sure she wouldn't see him. He had managed quite well until then, but he knew his luck was gone when he saw her glaring at him. A few seconds later, she was walking toward him at a fierce pace.

-"What are you doing here? Where is Rachel?" she asked, obviously angry.

-"The young high school girl who lives across the street agreed to come to your house to watch her. She'll be doing her homework and will sleep on the couch." He replied.

-"You never do what you're told, do you?" When House saw the way Cuddy was looking at him, he knew that it would be better for him not to answer. She sighed and finally said: "Since you're here, go check on that man over there. He has weird symptoms and none of them seem to be related to the fire."

He nodded and smiled sheepishly but Cuddy had already left to take care of other patients. She was overwhelmed between all the injured people and her hospital, that she had to manage over the phone in order to know how many patients she could keep sending over there.

Time went by and House was still surrounded by wounded people. He had sent the patient Cuddy found to the PPTH for a brain scan and now he was bored. He had always hated the emergencies: a lot of patients, no puzzles, just obvious injuries. It was a bit like line work, deadly dull. Except that he had to endure blood, cries and tears.

House was ready to move to another group of patients with Masters, who had joined him, when they both saw Cuddy running in the opposite direction. She was yelling at a man she seemed to be pursuing. She was running towards the burning hospital. Besides, she could feel her ears buzzing and her eyes burning because of the intensity of the ambient heat.

But the man she was running after was completely disoriented. He was a young entrepreneur who had come to the hospital's charity gala with his wife and his son. He had lost them when the fire started and had been hurt in the head by being pushed around during the general panic. Now he was freaking out and screaming that he needed to save his family. If Cuddy didn't stop him, he was going to go back to the burning building, oblivious of the danger.

House and Masters, who had been watching her the whole time, started to follow her to prevent her from continuing.

-"Cuddy!" yelled House "Stand back!"

She hadn't heard him, therefore she didn't stop. She was only a few meters away from the patient, way too close to the hospital in flames. She had almost reached her goal when she heard a loud crash. Part of the building had collapsed. And finally, what they had been dreading throughout the evening happened. A number of chemicals present in the hospital had come into direct contact with the flames and the inevitable happened.

The explosion. Surprising, deafening. A blast ravaging everything on its path.

House hadn't realised he was falling. Inside, he was paralysed. The explosion had happened too far from him to hurt him, but its blast was strong enough to make him stumble. He didn't care. His brain was still fixed on the image of Cuddy's body falling to the ground. He couldn't think about anything else. He was stuck in a kind of stupor and couldn't get out of it.

- "Oh, God !" cried Masters.

Ultimately, it was the cry of his employee, who had fallen a few feet away from him, which brought him back to reality. He looked around him. Half of the hospital had collapsed and there were several bodies on the ground. It strangely looked like a nightmare. Now he was praying he would wake up.

Suddenly, he got up and started to run as fast as his bad leg allowed him towards what seemed to be a real hecatomb. However, when he saw some people moving not far from where Cuddy was, a wave of hope seized him. He kept moving and yelled in a trembling voice "Cuddy!" which remained unanswered.

Finally, he started to panic.

He screamed.

- "Lisa!"


	3. Storm

**Hi guys!**

I am SO SORRY it took me more than a month to translate this second chapter. I have been overwhelmed with my job, I'm working extra hours and I have been exhausted. But I've already started to work on the next chapters (2 more to go!), you will have them quicker this time ! I swear!

I hope you'll like this chapter as much as the first one, thank you for all your amazing reviews, you made me really happy!

And once again, big thanks to **LEfan77** who read it and corrected it really quickly ! :)

_Enjoy ! =)_

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**Chapter 2: Storm**

Sometimes in life, you have to face several sights. Some are beautiful, some are funny. Some are disgusting and some can bring tears to your eyes. As the renowned doctor he was, Gregory House had had his fair share of sights of all kinds. He felt like he was immunized against emotions when he had to face a medical case, a wound. He had seen more blood than anybody else. He had seen people suffer, people die. But nothing could have prepared him to the sight of Lisa Cuddy, lying on the ground, bathing in her own blood.

As soon as he saw her curled up on the floor, lying in a pool of blood, he felt his thigh shaking violently. The last few inches between them seemed endless and he felt like he was going to collapse at any minute. Finally, he let himself fall beside her and took her gently in his arms. She was facing the ground and he wanted to return her to examine the extent of her injuries. He was scared. What if she was disfigured? What if her skin was completely burned? What if… He could make hundreds of assumptions but it wouldn't answer his questions. So he turned her gently on her back and laid her head on his lap.

Her face was unharmed. She was pale and had a few scratches, but when he saw the burnt skin on her left arm, he understood how she protected herself. However, what worried him most was the gaping wound in her adbomen which was bleeding profusely. Looking around, he saw that several pieces of scrap metal and concrete had been scattered by the explosion. She must have been hit and injured by some of them. He slightly lifted her shirt to examine the injury, and when he noticed the absence of foreign bodies, he placed his hand on the wound to slow down the flow of blood while awaiting rescue. Indeed, before rushing to Cuddy, he had vaguely heard Masters stammer something out about fetching a stretcher for the Dean of Medicine. Yet he knew that as the paramedics were already overwhelmed before the explosion, with the additional damages caused by the explosion, the already overwhelmed paramedics were going to take some time before coming to them. He had to take care of her himself.

He only realized he was shaking when he tried to take her pulse. He was shaking so much that even a simple doctor reflex was too difficult for him to accomplish. He ignored the tear of rage running along his cheek and desperately tried to calm down and find any proof that Cuddy was still alive. He sighed in relief when he finally found a pulse. Her heart was pounding, she was just unconscious. She was still there and he was going to save her.

He wanted to save her, but he knew he couldn't do it alone. He could heal any patient and pretend that he didn't care, act with everybody else as if he didn't feel anything, but as far as Cuddy was concerned, it was different. He couldn't even think properly. Thus he felt relieved when he spotted Foreman, not far away from him. Despite pranking him all the time, House knew he was a good doctor and that he could trust him.

-"Foreman, need you here." he called out in a hoarse and trembling voice.

The doctor rushed to him, astonished by the anxiety he could hear in his superior's voice. He understood his concern when he saw Cuddy's lifeless body. He knelt beside the couple and met, for a few seconds, House's desperate look, begging him for help. He had always known that the diagnostician was using sarcasm to hide his humanity, but he had to admit that seeing him so distraught was frightening.

-"I need you to come raise her legs while I examine her, it will slightly slow down the bleeding." said the younger doctor in a calm voice.

House nodded and obeyed, gently resting the Dean's head on the ground and heading for her legs that he kept in the air while Foreman examined the wound.

-"Given the position of the wound, we're gonna have to be quick. With all that blood, we can't see if there are any bruises that would show us any internal bleeding and I'm afraid her spleen exploded. We're gonna have to hurry, continued Foreman, trying to keep as much self-control as he could. I am going to bandage her and talk to the paramedics. They need to know her case is an emergency and she has to go to the hospital as soon as possible." He replied.

-"Go ahead; I can take care of the bandage. Masters already went to talk to them but I doubt she's very convincing." Replied the diagnostician who had, until then merely nodded.

-"Fine", Foreman said. He held out his first aid kit to House and walked toward the ambulances.

House sighed. His tremors had subsided; the presence of his colleague had reassured him. He gently rested the dean's legs on the ground and started bandaging her to stop the stream of blood that flowed continuously. It only took a few seconds for the bandage to be soaked with blood. He hoped the paramedics were going to hurry because his bandage was quickly going to be ineffective.

House rubbed his thigh, more painful than ever. He had been accustomed to the slight twinge of the past few months. Right now however, he felt like someone was stabbing his leg. In the end, Wilson had been right, his pain was psychological too.

He grabbed his girlfriend's cold hand and stroked her fingers, looking blankly at her lifeless face. Suddenly, he saw that she began to breathe harder and her face twisted in pain. She was regaining consciousness.

- "Hey, I'm here. Just stay with me", muttered House softly, caressing her cheek with his free hand.

Finally, she opened her eyes and immediately met blue eyes, veiled by anxiety, leaning over her. She smiled slightly but immediately winced. It was really bad. She had never felt such pain in her entire life. Hardly, she raised a hand to her abdomen and put it on House's, above her bandage. It took her a few seconds to realize what had happened and she looked House again.

-"How do you feel?" the diagnostician asked with his softest voice.

-"Hurt. And cold. And thirsty." she said weakly.

-"These are the effects of the bleeding." House noted.

- "Did I lose a lot of blood?" she asked in a strangely calm voice.

- "Quite a lot, yeah. But we're mostly worried about internal bleeding." House answered with honesty. "The paramedics are overwhelmed but they will come for you really soon." He continued.

Cuddy nodded slightly and let the diagnostician's arms cradle her. However, anxiety quickly took control of her body. She didn't want to die. She didn't want her daughter to grow up without her. She didn't want to lose House. Suddenly, she was thankful that House hadn't listened to her and that he was here, with her. His presence soothed her. If she had to die, she wanted it to happen in his arms.

- "I'm sorry" she whispered.

- "You're only telling me that because you're in pain. I'm the one who is supposed to apologize." House tried to make it sound like a joke but he was too worried.

- "But you are not going to" stated Cuddy.

- "No. I'm not gonna lie, seeing you like this isn't exactly the most pleasant thing on earth, but I'd rather be here with you than having someone telling me what happened to you on the phone."

-"I'm glad you're here." Cuddy stated. "I love you." She went on a few seconds later.

- "I know" muttered House absent-mindedly.

- "Do you love me?" Cuddy asked, worried.

-"We are so not doing this." House cried, feeling the anger rising. "We are not gonna say goodbye."

-"We never know House, I need…"

-"No! If you want to hear it, you're gonna have to fight!" exclaimed House, slightly raising his voice.

At these words, Cuddy's eyes were full of tears. She tried to sound as strong as possible and replied:

-"You can't help being stubborn, can you? I need to be reassured and you refuse to let it go for 5 minutes and tell me you love me. It can't be that complicated!"

She really wanted to get angry, but she felt weaker and weaker. Fear and pain were taking control of her body and soon, she wasn't feeling strong enough to keep her tears from falling.

- "If I tell you now how I feel, it is going to sound like a goodbye. I can't. Rachel needs you. I need you. I'm not gonna let you die, this is the only thing you need to know. We'll talk about our feelings later." House said in a softer voice, gently stroking her cheek to wipe away some of her tears. "Now calm down. Breathe." He continued, seeing that her outburst worsened her condition.

Cuddy nodded, knowing that he was too stubborn to open up to her more that he just did. She wanted to believe he was right and she was going to be fine, but she was feeling even weaker than before. House's bandage was not enough to stop the bleeding. It was too cold. It was too painful. She couldn't fight it anymore.

-"I'm sorry." She whispered softly before slipping back into unconsciousness.

- "Cuddy! Cuddy!" House called in a panicked voice. No answer. Instantaneously, he wished he had told her how much he loved her.

It took him a few seconds to come back to reality and realize that a group of people were walking towards him, led by Foreman. He saw a stretcher with relief, and gave a grateful look to Foreman.

He watched the paramedics set Cuddy on the stretcher and followed them when they brought her to the ambulance. When he tried to climb in, a man stopped him:

-"We're taking care of her. You should stay here, we need more doctors…" said the paramedic in an apologetic tone.

- "He's her husband!" interrupted Masters. House gave her a surprised look. He hadn't noticed she was there.

-"Oh, excuse me! Well, in that case, we'll manage. Hop in." Said the man.

Not even thinking about arguing on the stupidity of marriage and how he refused to ever get engaged, House threw a grateful glance at the young woman before getting into the ambulance, alongside Cuddy.

- "She's the boss of Princeton Plainsboro, take us there." He stammered to the paramedics while the ambulance was about to leave.

He sat beside the stretcher where Cuddy was lying, still unconscious and watched the paramedics take care of her, setting up a perfusion and connecting her to a heart monitor.  
Instinctively, he grabbed one of her hands. This scene brought him back a year ago, in a similar ambulance, where he saw Hannah's husband watching his wife die, holding her hand. With that thought, House felt nauseous and prayed all the gods that he did not usually believe in for history to not repeat itself. He could not bear to lose Cuddy, he was sure of it.


End file.
